


Shallow

by kritter



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 01:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19262803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kritter/pseuds/kritter
Summary: Markus confronts Leo after a physical fight between the two of them and they debate their opinions on the 'human' experience.





	Shallow

“I don’t know why I…feel like I need to fight all the time,” Leo admitted. He didn’t notice at all the way he cupped Markus’ cheeks in his hands, looking over his face for any sign of  _severe_ injury, as if the android’s wounds would react like a human’s and thus be left irreparable.

“What are you looking for?” Embarrassed, Leo blinked, shaking his head and stepping back with an awkward shrug.

“You did it when I was punched in the face, last time. Guess it just sorta…happened.” Markus’ eyes lit up for a moment, realization striking him with a bit of excitement; he reached out to grab Leo by the arm to share the way his body seemed to jumble in anticipation beneath him, but decided against it as he remembered Leo’s specific sense of personal boundaries.

“That was important, Leo. Do you know what that means?” Looking lost and a bit more tired, Leo did nothing more than throw a gaze that showed he felt overestimated. Pausing, Markus looked sympathetic before he continued speaking, his voice softer with less of a rush to his phrases this time.

“You showed sympathy. Even many androids have difficulty with this. I haven’t seen you go out of your way to check on someone else before.” Leo’s only thought was about how he refused to have this conversation, turning to make haste towards the living room.

“No, wait!” Markus’ voice wasn’t so vigor as still excited, wanting to share this revelation with the person who should be reveling in it in the first place.

“Leo, this isn’t a confrontation. I mean it in a good way.” Markus felt disheartened that Leo never seemed to want to listen, no matter what he was telling him, even when it was a good thing. While he understood to a limited extent how difficult it was to come to terms with yourself, Leo avoided even the slightest hint of it, improvement or not, like the plague. This was what made communicating difficult, and the reason Markus insisted he’d have to follow close behind if he wanted to make his way through to Leo.  _Again._

“We have to work on this. Anyway, thanks for caring. It’s a good sign, even if you don’t like being told—” Leo whipped around to shoot him a cold glare, licking over his chapped lips and tapping his fingers together to keep himself from swinging punches.

“Remember what we talked about? Not to talk to me like a fucking  _counselor_?” Momentarily stunned, Markus felt ashamed of himself for becoming so overbearing again. In the routine of trying to adjust to Leo’s aggressive personality, he’d began to pick up some confrontative quirks as well, and they weren’t terribly useful or productive secondhand habits.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.” There  _was_  no right way to talk to Leo; he just had to soften his tone and try his best, hoping Leo was feeling gracious at the moment with his mood. Today wasn’t his lucky day.

“I hate hearing about all that brain bullshit. You don’t want me to treat you like a computer, I don’t want you to treat me like a weird chunk of meat. It’s annoying and makes you look like a jerk.” As the realization dawned on him, Markus took a moment to step aside for  _himself_  this time, leaving Leo looking annoyed with a useless shrug, smacking his hands to his sides in defeat.

“Whatever, man. Sorry I punched you.”

-

“It’s just like, I want them to  _shut up_ , and it’s that easy. You know what makes people shut up? Fists. And bullets.”

The serious tone about a matter from a man like Leo, still full of youth and anticipation yet so vicious and opposing, brought unpleasant flashbacks upon Markus as he sat there, listening.

“You wanted me to shut up?” The question immediately felt silly spoken outside his head, considering Leo’s nature of shutting out what he didn’t like.

“Do you always act like you’re the only one in the room?” That time the inquiry was sharp, intended to pry into the part of Leo’s consciousness that got him to actually stop and think. It seemed to work as he paused, offense drilling into his chest, causing him to puff up his stature as he often did when feeling threatened by anyone physically larger than him.

“Oh,  _come on_ , Markus. You started a war. Don’t act like you don’t understand wanting someone to just shut up and deal with it. I’ve never had to use  _fire_  to prove my point. I’ve done a lot of shitty stuff, but I’ve never shot anyone. My fists are all I’ve got, dude.”

Markus was surprised both by Leo’s clarity, the rough disposition he’d been raised in, as well as how  _right_  he was; but it was an unfair comparison in his opinion, as he’d had to fight by the masses and that wasn’t something Leo had dealt with. Still, they both have done whatever it takes to defend their own lives, and he wished Leo could see that was the point he was trying to make.

-

Leo had forgotten the feeling of twisting guilt, keeping him awake with the nagging truths that always emerged in imagined voices that tore him down. Something internal that sounded external and never failed to remind him how useless and pathetic he was. A couple told him to kill himself on a semi-regular basis. One in the far back sounded like his mom in her worst moments, and any other whisper of his psyche was a replica of negative memories composed into something new and relevant.  _Mental illness_  and  _learning disability_  had yet to grace his ears with any hope of success, leaving him to firmly believe all the mistakes made in his life were his fault alone, simply for being how he was. It ultimately led up to an intolerable personality that no one wanted to be around, therefore inevitably leaving him on his own again. The way he acted always seemed to be a weird combination of feeling like he was on top of the world, or below the deepest layers of hell yet deserved worse, depending, and it generally changed with the flip of a dime or less. Markus had no idea how to navigate it, but sometimes he said the right thing and got him to calm down; figuring out what it took was another riddle in itself.

-

“Why are you so afraid of success?” Blinking, Leo raised his eyebrows, reminding himself not to be so surprised an android didn’t understand the complicated emotional aspects of life that confused most humans on a daily basis.

“Okay, that, you’re never gonna get. I…don’t think,” Leo corrected himself, realizing his selfishness in assuming again. On second thought, there was no way he could be so sure, as Markus continued to surprise him with the amount of depth he actually did seem to experience emotions. It was confusing and strange, but over time he started seeing it more naturally; it was the majority of his skeptical personality that still had a while to work past.

“That’s the hardest thing. People work their asses off to do something good or useful in the world. Most of the time, it’s not worth it, nothing happens.” He remembered Carl begging him countless times, offering to pay for whatever school or university he wanted; drop the drugs and get an education.  _You could become something great_. Leo hated the way he insisted he had talent, as if he could make something of himself from dirty gutter water when Carl had the world in his hands; it felt unfair and mocking, the way only a rich, comfortable  _family member_  sneezing lies and false hopes down to his homeless, beggar dropout of a son could do.  _He didn’t mean to lie to you_ , he reminded himself, but wasn’t sure if he believed it.

“I bet you’ve heard dad talk about it all the time. The art industry is fake, any of it, all of it is. If you can draw, or you’re pretty, or you split your tongue in half, or do a cool trick, then you’re cool and popular and you get a bunch of money. None of it  _means_  anything – it just screws over low-lives that can’t do anything  _useful,_  like me!” While Markus had a solid understanding of politics and how they worked, he’d never considered it from a personal standpoint as he’d never had any real reason to, leaving him withdrawn as he listened to Leo.

“All rich people do is give money to other rich people while poor people can barely get by with a fucking dayjob, and that’s without talking  _minimum wage_  or  **felony charges**.”

“Your father gave you plenty of money, Leo. You spent it on drugs.”

“That’s not the point!” Leo snapped his fingers before they tangled in his hair as he steamed over what the original topic was, realizing he’d derailed himself.

“Okay, whatever. It’s just, the system’s rigged and I’m not gonna let it fuck me any harder.” Markus visibly winced from the image the words painted in his mind.

“I said success,” Markus notified him.

“What you’re talking about is failure.” Leo scratched his head, almost missing the wisdom in a moment of confusion, but after a second of forced focus, he caught on.

“Uh. Yeah. I mean, I guess.”  _Of course_  he’d never made the connection before, when every outcome depended on how he took on the next challenge, and that  _never_  went well. He’d never succeeded, so he never expected to, and thus never saw a reason to try, a self-fulfilling prodigy of his own fear of working hard only to fail.

“It’s harder to stay sober if you don’t have long-term goals. Right?” Markus reminded himself not to talk over Leo, lest he get smacked across the face a few more times.

“Yeah, they mention that,” Leo replied, although reluctantly, averting his gaze with a sigh.

“Any job in the world. Which one would you want?” Leo scoffed with a twitch of one eyebrow, quirking it and tilting his head as if he couldn’t believe the words he’d heard.

“Oh, that’s cute. You read that from the therapy book? Haven’t heard  _that_  question before.” Markus waited patiently until Leo’s body posture slouched and lowered, signaling he was ready to continue on without further antagonization.

“If I had to work doing something all my life to earn sleeping and eating, I might as well do something useful. I’d build, but I can’t measure anything. Farming means knowing how to take care of plants, and you think that’s easy? No way! Everything’s complicated, o-or overdone, or overrated and underpaid and I don’t want to deal with it. Okay? Not school, not a job, nothing. I’m not slaving under some fatass for a car I’m never gonna afford to funnel money into until I die. It’s just… I can’t do it.”  _Dad’s inheritance will be enough_ , he thought, but not only didn’t want to say it, but he wasn’t entirely sure with how undependable his spending habits were—there was a reason he wasn’t supposed to have it yet and he knew that, whether he liked it or not.

“What would you do under different circumstances, then?” Markus continued.

“Just, because you wanted to.”

This question struck him silent for a long minute as Leo wasn’t sure what to say. Did he have actual interests? For the most part, he did what he had to for the sake of getting by, not necessarily for fun or leisure.

“I think you don’t like anything to do with obligation,” Markus pointed out, keeping his voice calm so as not to agitate Leo further with his words. The sentence was already slightly accusatory in nature, but he was hoping to hold Leo’s attention long enough to explain himself properly.

“You’re fine with plants, but farming sounds impossible to you. I  _know_  you’ll find ways to make money if it suits you, but not if you have to. If you look at the world that way, of course you’ll bring yourself to failure without even trying. Literally.” Leo wore a brighter tint on his cheeks in the moment of surprise at being called out so well, considering he’d never been confronted so precisely before.

“It’s complicated,” he excused with a stiff shake of his head, avoiding the subject with a step to the side as he turned to walk towards the kitchen. He didn’t have to see Markus following him to know he was approaching, turning to deflect him as soon as he’d neared the dining table.

“You know what  _will_  get you by in this world? Knowing your needles, plants and your guns. What can kill you and what can save your life. The kind of glock that officer shot you with? Those wounds would  _kill_  a human on the spot.” In a moment of feeling brave, he pulled up the waistline of his shirt, revealing a few of the scattered scars across his torso before pointing to a deeply engraved, round one on the right side of his chest, a few inches below and to the right of his nipple and tucked between where a pair of ribs were if he didn’t take a deep breath. Markus blinked with a sympathetic lift of his eyebrows as he eased his expression.

“I know that you want to stand for the same sorta thing,” Leo aggressed.

“But you getting shot, and this? It’s not gonna be the same. You can’t feel pain, and no matter how many emotions you think you have, you’ll never know  _agony_.”

“Leo, both of us can breathe, and bleed, and die. Thinking and feeling is all part of that experience,” he explained, yet didn’t sound so sure, even to himself. Leo’s point was made and understood, as Markus agreed that he was right in the fact there was never going to be a way for himself to experience or understand physical pain. His frustration was less in the difference of comparing events and tragedies, like how Leo seemed to be dealing with, and moreso in the fact he wanted to aid Leo with metaphorical weapons to fight in this war yet felt helpless as he had nothing to offer, and Leo was only widening the gap between them.

Leo wanted to argue back but stopped beforehand this time as something within him made him realize spilling the words wouldn’t be worthwhile for once. Arguing about death and injury was depressing, anyway, and it wouldn’t get either of them anywhere; so, dropping the subject, he left.

Again.


End file.
